Q:
At their February 20 meeting the planning commission imposed 12
midnight closing hours on the Sharkeez
expansion. Won't those early closing hours protect us from any
impact?Answer:
Even
if it was a 10 p.m. closing, the additional patrons would
add to car traffic and pollution in town, increase the competition for
parking spaces, and require more police time to ensure those patrons'
safety
while they are visiting Hermosa.
Further, the midnight closing hours are not even final. The
planning commission's action came before the council for final
approval on
March 27, after which there is a 10-day period during which Sharkeez
could appeal:
"Co-owner Greg Newman says he will appeal a requirement that a proposed
open-air second-story eating area must close at midnight while the rest
of the bar below can stay open until 2 a.m., an order he said makes it
impossible to expand the nightspot by nearly 50 percent as planned."
(Daily Breeze Feb. 22)
And even if the early closing hours (midnight) survive an appeal, will
they survive after the November council election?

REFERENDUM FAQ # 2

Q:
Why all this upset about the expansion of restaurants? What's
wrong with having nice restaurants?Answer:
The
Hermosa Beach Zoning Code defines
a restaurant as not
selling more alcohol than food (by dollar volume), but the city has not
audited that 50 - 50 relationship at any restaurant in the last 20
years.
As a result, in Hermosa a "restaurant" can operate like a saloon or
night club - and many do.

REFERENDUM FAQ # 3

Q:
During the March 13 council meeting one councilmember said, "Unless we
change this ordinance, he couldn't rebuild what he
had down there. That's all we're really doing, is changing the
ordinance to allow him or anyone else down there to rebuild, if they
should burn down."
Is that correct?Answer:
No.
The Council's new ordinance of March 13 was written
specifically and exclusively to ease the present
Zoning
Code parking
requirements associated with the addition of second stories.
Sharkeez never had a second story, so had he elected to rebuild "what
he had down there," he could have rebuilt it without assistance from
the changes made
by the new ordinance. Thus, if this referendum passes and the new
ordinance cannot go into effect, Sharkeez can still rebuild to the same
size they had before. (Actually, the new single-story Sharkeez
would be
slightly larger inside than the original Sharkeez, due to their plan to
move the rear
wall 3 feet southward to the rear property line, and because the new
side and rear walls can be thinner than the original brick walls.)

The councilmember who made the above-quoted statement was absent from
the meeting where the
new ordinance was introduced, so he may have confused it another recent
measure, the council's December 12 action (#
06-1276) easing the rules on the reconstruction of damaged
nonconforming buildings.
The new ordinance (#
07-1278)
applies to all buildings with a greater than one-to-one floor ratio
(second stories), without regard to
whether the building was damaged,
or is intact.
Can't blame him for the confusion, though. In the last several
months there's been a lot of Sharkeez-related legislation.
Besides the two ordinances noted above, there was a proposal
for a "Parking In-lieu Alternative Payment Plan," heard at the January
9 council meeting.

REFERENDUM FAQ
# 4

Q:
A
Spring
2007 newspaper article listed the numbers of police calls made
to the Plaza. Where did those numbers come from?Answer:
The
numbers were provided to a citizen by the HBPD.
They included all calls for service for the Plaza, including security
checks. At a future date the HBPD will provide numbers, without
security checks. The June to February period was chosen because
Sharkeez closed in mid-May 2006.

June
2004
to February 2005, inclusive, 1600 callsJune
2005
to February 2006, inclusive, 1433 callsJune
2006
to February 2007, inclusive, 1123 calls

REFERENDUM
FAQ # 5

Q:
Are you suggesting that Sharkeez should have to build parking
on-site? Or on the Plaza?Answer:
No.
Building
parking
on-site is impractical. And putting parking on
the pedestrian Plaza, or facing it, is a ridiculous idea, one that was never discussed - until Sharkeez
put an artist's rendition of it in their full-color mailer as a scare
tactic. (For
those who haven't seen it, the full-page artwork shows the restaurants
on the
south side of the Plaza raised up on pillars, with cars parked
underneath, and trash blowing in an otherwise featureless Plaza
presumably used as vehicular access to the parking.)

We agree that Plaza property owners need an
exemption to the on-site parking requirement, so that they can exercise
their property right to build up to the height limit;
but we also believe that the City should provide the exemptions only to
those projects where the new square-footage is
to be office or
retail space. The new ordinance allows any kind of use of the added
footage - including bar or restaurant.

If this referendum passes and Sharkeez (or another Plaza businessman)
is determined to build a second story of bar, the current Zoning
Code
would require him to build 5 spaces on site. We imagine that he
would build them as a half-above-ground basement, with an access ramp
connecting them to the existing parking lot behind his building.
There would be no need for the parking to be visible from the Plaza.

REFERENDUM FAQ
# 6

Q:
Do other businesses support the Sharkeez project?Answer:
Apparently
not.
Ordinarily, when a business in Hermosa is before
the City Council or Planning Commission pursuing a new project or
permit, the Executive
Director of the Chamber of Commerce goes to the podium and speaks in
support of the business. But with the Sharkeez two-story project
she did not speak. (See the minutes
of the Planning Commission meeting of February 20.) She was
present, but
remained in her seat. We can only conclude that the Chamber's
Executive Board, made up of local businesspeople, voted to withhold the
Chamber's support.

REFERENDUM FAQ # 7

Referendum FAQ # 7 is now FAQ # 2 in
the new FAQ - see the link on the Home Page.

REFERENDUM FAQ # 8

Q: On March 30 many voters received a full-color four-page mailer
from
Sharkeez. And they have a new website,
www.saveourplaza.org. What do you think of all that?

Answer: These are early comments. We may have more later!

The Mailer -

We discussed page one of the mailer - Sharkeez artist's painting of
what the Plaza could look like if the referendum passes - in FAQ # 5,
above.

On page two of the mailer, they said that their former (233) and
proposed occupancies (299) represent an increase of 23%.
First, we couldn't make the math work. Dividing their numbers, we
got 28%. Second, according to the City building department, the
official occupancy level for the proposed project has not yet been
determined. It could end up much higher, as in Hermosa Beach
occupancy levels are often the subject of extended and intense
negotiation.

On page three we saw the heading "Referendum Threatens Pier" next to
a picture of the Hermosa Beach fishing pier. We wish to make it
clear that this referendum has no
effect onthe
pier. We also noticed that page three talks about "considerable
revenue for the city." We discussed that in FAQ # 7, above.
Page three says that the ordinance is number
01-1278. It is 07-1278.

The back page of the mailer is a rendering of the front and back
facades of the proposed new Sharkeez. It also includes a portion
of the front of Patrick Molloys. The rendering is very detailed
and
if you look closely, you can see that the front and back marquee signs
at Sharkeez are advertising 21 oz. Margaritas - an indication that the
new Sharkeez won't be all that different from the old Sharkeez.
After all, they will need to remain competitive with their neighbor,
Molloys, whose marquee shows 50 cent drafts and Beer Pong (a
bar-sponsored drinking game).

The Website -

The website mostly repeats
the same material found in the mailer, with
a picture of a wheelchair-bound young man continuing the mailer's
emphasis on service to the handicapped.

The only really
different thing is the website's name - Save Our Plaza. The name
argues that if Sharkeez is rebuilt with just one story, the Plaza will
be doomed. We want to save the Plaza too, so that ordinary
Hermosans can once again feel comfortable walking there, and can't
imagine that having to walk past twice as many outdoor revelers - at
ground level plus up on the balcony - will improve the comfort
level.

REFERENDUM FAQ
# 9

Q: I do business with the City. Once these petitions have
been
submitted to the City Clerk, can the councilmembers look at them?

Answer: They cannot look. According to the City Clerk,
these petitions are confidential.